What is the funniest / strangest thing you ever received in a care package in OIF/OEF?

1 Pound bag of Gummy Bears. May not sound that funny but due to the heat in Kuwait they had melted down and I got a gummy blob. Which was cool because I could rip a piece off and chew on it for a while. Great sugar rush!

The strangest thing I ever got, was a pack of pantyhose from my dad. He had talk to somebody who wants knew somebody who had gone to the Middle East for Desert Storm and the thing that stood out from his conversation with him was that the air filters on the Humvees kept clogging up from the sand and they used pantyhose. So me and my buddies had a lot of fun putting pantyhose over our heads and running around like old-school stick up artists from the movies.

My mom sent a lot of holiday stuff. A small Christmas tree. Pre-Halloween, I received a box with a bunch of Halloween masks and a plastic pumpkin full of poge-bait. We all debated wearing them into the vill that night on our regular patrol. M14 armed trick or treaters? I always shared my packages with my hooch and they were always good for a laugh. Apparently my mom knew something about how to cheer us all up.

I got shampoo that doesn't require water. Problem is - I'm bald

Well, we didn't receive it, but it was memorable.

The unit we relieved had a chicken that played the chicken dance song. One of their guys got it in the mail for Easter or something. When one of their NCOs decided that my guys were making too much noise during their sleep cycle (which they probably were), they decided to play that chicken over and over again outside of the hooch that my PSG and I were billeted in.

The next morning, my first order of business (even before a Class 1 download) was to locate said chicken, douse it with EtOH-based hand sanitizer in the burn pit and kill it dead with fire.

Most satisfying.

One of the guys in my basic his mom a marine thought a funny joke sent him a huge platter of chocolate chip cookies the DS's had him read the note from his mom saying she hoped everyone enjoyed the cookies and that the DS's have her permission to smoke us to death for eating them needless to say they put the platter in their office until the last day brought them out the cookies were falling apart the DS's said privates eat them if you want we won't kill you your graduating tomorrow. Everyone but me ate some of the crumbling cookies afterwards the DS's smoked everyone till they puked the cookies back up all over the floor and we spent the day cleaning the bay again I warned them something was up when that platter came back out (they were sent week two so yeah I'm surprised they lasted when we all thought the DS's had eaten them)

Each of my deployments my grandmother would send me a few coloring books and a huge box of crayons. Great stress reliever. I kept them in my office so when someone wanted to color they could; but had to sign the page. I kept them for a long time as a memento.

During my husband's second deployment, I sent him a (tiny) live Christmas tree. He managed to keep it alive for a few months, decorated it over the holidays (both with stuff I sent and stuff they made), and then put the poor thing out of its misery after New Years. But it was pretty cool while it lasted...

I didn't care...I was just HAPPY to get a care package.

For me in Desert Storm, it was a Swanson's whole canned chicken that my folks sent. One of my Soldiers, SPC Munoz cooked it up in a .50 cal ammo can. Delicious bird!

For OIF, it was several boxes of tampons and feminine pads from my well wishing, but ignorant civilian co-workers from back home. We quickly realized the need for such a handy, blood absorbant item that we added several to our first aid kits. We left several in our outpost's "day room" where some traveling female MPs grabbed them on a rest in between patrols.....we didn't need them as an imbedded advisor team to an Iraqi Infantry Battalion! !